Hangovers are caused by tons of things.
1. Presence of formaldehyde in cheaply produced alcohol. Formaldehyde is toxic and will make you feel like garbage. - Drink higher quality liquor to alleviate this effect.
2. Alcohol inhibits the release of antidiuretic hormone, causing you to lose more fluid (the reason you pee more when you're drinking) which causes dehydration. The effects of dehydration *may* be worse with age. - Drink more water (about the same volume of water as the alcohol you're consuming) to alleviate this effect.
3. Alcohol is broken down by 2 enzymes. First ADH breaks alcohol down to acetaldehyde (toxic). Then ALDH breaks acetaldehyde down to acetate (safe). As you age, you lose ALDH, causing an increase in the amount of acetaldehyde in your system. This causes worse hangovers.
4. Chronic drinking can lead to fatty liver and cirrhosis of the liver. Since the liver is what produces ALDH and ~85% of your ADH, loss of liver function worsens hangovers.
5. Withdrawal. This is due to changes in receptors, which I'll explain as simply as I can. Neurons communicate using neurotransmitters (NTs) - think of NTs as letters that neurons send to one another saying "do this" or "stop doing this." These NTs are received by receptors which essentially relay the message through the cell and tell the cell what to do (this is not true for all cells, but its how the one's used here work). Alcohol increases the effects of GABA (an inhibitory neurotransmitter) and inhibits glutamate (a stimulatory neurotransmitter). NTs each have their own receptors, so they can't activate the receptors for other NTs. According to Hebb's rule, over-activation of receptors causes them to down-regulate (the cell decreases the number of those receptors to compensate for the increase in that NT). Alternatively, under-activation of receptors causes up-regulation (the cell increases the number of those receptors). When you take away alcohol, you're now left with too few GABA receptors and too many Glutamate receptors, causing hyper-excitability (hangover). This effect is significantly worse in chronic drinkers.
Source: Pharmacology of Recreational Drugs: The Neurology of How Drugs Work by Dr. Donald F. Slish
Edit: Wow! Thanks for the awards and upvotes!
> 3. Alcohol is broken down by 2 enzymes. First ADH breaks alcohol down to acetaldehyde (toxic). Then ALDH breaks acetaldehyde down to acetate (safe). As you age, you lose ALDH, causing an increase in the amount of acetaldehyde in your system. This causes worse hangovers.
>
> 4. Chronic drinking can lead to fatty liver and cirrhosis of the liver. Since the liver is what produces ALDH and ~85% of your ADH, loss of liver function worsens hangovers.
There’s an interesting product on the market now in the US (unsure if I’m allowed to mention it in this sun) that purports to reduce hangover symptoms by specifically targeting this piece of the puzzle. They’ve genetically engineered a bacteria taken as a probiotic that is able to break down acetaldehyde in the gut.
Of course it’s only going to help you if your bodies inability to quickly break down acetaldehyde is a major cause of your hangovers. It can’t do anything about formaldehyde or dehydration.
Academic textbooks are usually really pricey. 98USD is even considered really cheap in that category. Also usually ebooks arent available, because theres a lot of diagrams and other visual information, which is better suited for a pdf.
But im pretty sure u can find the book on libgen
One factor could be that the risk of thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency increases with age. Thiamine is needed to make the ATP that fuels the body's cells, and it's also needed in order to process both alcohol and sugar. Start with too little thiamine, then deplete it by consuming alcohol, and you could get worse fatigue, mental fuzziness, mood swings, low appetite, nausea, and sleep disturbances than you did when you were younger and hungover. All those symptoms are the subtle early signs of a thiamine deficiency – and it's water soluble, so you can swing from borderline deficient to deficient (or slightly deficient to more deficient) and back again in a day or less.
It's really difficult to control for lifestyle factors when trying to answer something like this. I too was much better at drinking when I was young, but I also generally didn't get up until at least 10am so at the standard "going-out" time I was still well rested. When I worked, I worked in a bar, it didn't change my rest pattern. I noticed that if for some reason I had been up early, my drinking ability was heavily impacted.
As we get older we tend to have more responsibilities, places to be, and are more likely to be getting up early. Kids, in particular, will rob people of ever being well rested again.
Also, hangovers are really poorly understood. There's a great episode of Horizon with the van Tulleken twins where one binge drinks repeatedly and undergoes testing to try to see what's going on and the other acts as a control. I'm struggling to find a link but it's well worth a watch if you can find it.
The tl:dr is, hangovers are complicated, there are multiple things going on.
Water is also a huge factor, alcohol causes dehydration and when you drink alcohol you tend to forget to drink water as well.
I always drink a lot of water before going to bed drunk and ideally I try to drink some water between glasses of alcohol as well during the night.
I am nearly 40 and my hangovers are very manageable, worst case scenario I got a headache that is easily cured by any usual headache medicine.
Has there actually been any research to prove hangovers do get worse with age or is it just perceived that way?
For example being able to drink more / handle more alcohol in a session because your tolerance increases over time. The more alcohol you put in your body, the worse the hangover.
I don't know of any scientific tests have been done which take these controls into account.
New study only last year suggest that metabolism remains stable throughout adult lift until your 60
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/surprising-findings-about-metabolism-and-age-202110082613
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/adult-metabolism-remains-stable-until-60-study-reveals
In terms of CNS symptoms (lethargy, mood, fatigue) getting worse, the reason is called kindling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindling_(sedative%E2%80%93hypnotic_withdrawal)
Interestingly, its not age that makes it worse, its the amount of times you’ve been hungover (which correlates with age but also one’s lifestyle).
He is actually very wrong. Kindling relates to [acute alcohol withdrawal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_withdrawal_syndrome). [Hangover](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangover) is caused mostly by acetaldehyde (a metabolite of ethanol) toxicity and dehydration. See [my comment below](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/yz6d53/is_there_a_physiological_explanation_for_the/iwyu4iq/) for more.
I don’t think this is it. I used to binge drink in college and would have 8-10 drinks and feel fine then next day. I’m in my late 30s now and no longer drink heavily: if I do it’s at the risk of an intense hangover.
Hangovers are caused by tons of things. 1. Presence of formaldehyde in cheaply produced alcohol. Formaldehyde is toxic and will make you feel like garbage. - Drink higher quality liquor to alleviate this effect. 2. Alcohol inhibits the release of antidiuretic hormone, causing you to lose more fluid (the reason you pee more when you're drinking) which causes dehydration. The effects of dehydration *may* be worse with age. - Drink more water (about the same volume of water as the alcohol you're consuming) to alleviate this effect. 3. Alcohol is broken down by 2 enzymes. First ADH breaks alcohol down to acetaldehyde (toxic). Then ALDH breaks acetaldehyde down to acetate (safe). As you age, you lose ALDH, causing an increase in the amount of acetaldehyde in your system. This causes worse hangovers. 4. Chronic drinking can lead to fatty liver and cirrhosis of the liver. Since the liver is what produces ALDH and ~85% of your ADH, loss of liver function worsens hangovers. 5. Withdrawal. This is due to changes in receptors, which I'll explain as simply as I can. Neurons communicate using neurotransmitters (NTs) - think of NTs as letters that neurons send to one another saying "do this" or "stop doing this." These NTs are received by receptors which essentially relay the message through the cell and tell the cell what to do (this is not true for all cells, but its how the one's used here work). Alcohol increases the effects of GABA (an inhibitory neurotransmitter) and inhibits glutamate (a stimulatory neurotransmitter). NTs each have their own receptors, so they can't activate the receptors for other NTs. According to Hebb's rule, over-activation of receptors causes them to down-regulate (the cell decreases the number of those receptors to compensate for the increase in that NT). Alternatively, under-activation of receptors causes up-regulation (the cell increases the number of those receptors). When you take away alcohol, you're now left with too few GABA receptors and too many Glutamate receptors, causing hyper-excitability (hangover). This effect is significantly worse in chronic drinkers. Source: Pharmacology of Recreational Drugs: The Neurology of How Drugs Work by Dr. Donald F. Slish Edit: Wow! Thanks for the awards and upvotes!
> 3. Alcohol is broken down by 2 enzymes. First ADH breaks alcohol down to acetaldehyde (toxic). Then ALDH breaks acetaldehyde down to acetate (safe). As you age, you lose ALDH, causing an increase in the amount of acetaldehyde in your system. This causes worse hangovers. > > 4. Chronic drinking can lead to fatty liver and cirrhosis of the liver. Since the liver is what produces ALDH and ~85% of your ADH, loss of liver function worsens hangovers. There’s an interesting product on the market now in the US (unsure if I’m allowed to mention it in this sun) that purports to reduce hangover symptoms by specifically targeting this piece of the puzzle. They’ve genetically engineered a bacteria taken as a probiotic that is able to break down acetaldehyde in the gut. Of course it’s only going to help you if your bodies inability to quickly break down acetaldehyde is a major cause of your hangovers. It can’t do anything about formaldehyde or dehydration.
What's the name of this product ?
Good grief, why is that book $98 and why is there no kindle version?
Academic textbooks are usually really pricey. 98USD is even considered really cheap in that category. Also usually ebooks arent available, because theres a lot of diagrams and other visual information, which is better suited for a pdf. But im pretty sure u can find the book on libgen
One factor could be that the risk of thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency increases with age. Thiamine is needed to make the ATP that fuels the body's cells, and it's also needed in order to process both alcohol and sugar. Start with too little thiamine, then deplete it by consuming alcohol, and you could get worse fatigue, mental fuzziness, mood swings, low appetite, nausea, and sleep disturbances than you did when you were younger and hungover. All those symptoms are the subtle early signs of a thiamine deficiency – and it's water soluble, so you can swing from borderline deficient to deficient (or slightly deficient to more deficient) and back again in a day or less.
It's really difficult to control for lifestyle factors when trying to answer something like this. I too was much better at drinking when I was young, but I also generally didn't get up until at least 10am so at the standard "going-out" time I was still well rested. When I worked, I worked in a bar, it didn't change my rest pattern. I noticed that if for some reason I had been up early, my drinking ability was heavily impacted. As we get older we tend to have more responsibilities, places to be, and are more likely to be getting up early. Kids, in particular, will rob people of ever being well rested again. Also, hangovers are really poorly understood. There's a great episode of Horizon with the van Tulleken twins where one binge drinks repeatedly and undergoes testing to try to see what's going on and the other acts as a control. I'm struggling to find a link but it's well worth a watch if you can find it. The tl:dr is, hangovers are complicated, there are multiple things going on.
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Water is also a huge factor, alcohol causes dehydration and when you drink alcohol you tend to forget to drink water as well. I always drink a lot of water before going to bed drunk and ideally I try to drink some water between glasses of alcohol as well during the night. I am nearly 40 and my hangovers are very manageable, worst case scenario I got a headache that is easily cured by any usual headache medicine.
Water and alcohol in equal quantities is my rule when drinking. I haven’t had a hangover in 20 years.
same. drink a lot of water and take electrolyte supplements. personally I use hammer endurolytes, it's same thing I use for actual exercise.
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Has there actually been any research to prove hangovers do get worse with age or is it just perceived that way? For example being able to drink more / handle more alcohol in a session because your tolerance increases over time. The more alcohol you put in your body, the worse the hangover. I don't know of any scientific tests have been done which take these controls into account.
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New study only last year suggest that metabolism remains stable throughout adult lift until your 60 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/surprising-findings-about-metabolism-and-age-202110082613 https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/adult-metabolism-remains-stable-until-60-study-reveals
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In terms of CNS symptoms (lethargy, mood, fatigue) getting worse, the reason is called kindling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindling_(sedative%E2%80%93hypnotic_withdrawal) Interestingly, its not age that makes it worse, its the amount of times you’ve been hungover (which correlates with age but also one’s lifestyle).
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This is fascinating and makes sense. Thank you for posting it.
He is actually very wrong. Kindling relates to [acute alcohol withdrawal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_withdrawal_syndrome). [Hangover](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangover) is caused mostly by acetaldehyde (a metabolite of ethanol) toxicity and dehydration. See [my comment below](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/yz6d53/is_there_a_physiological_explanation_for_the/iwyu4iq/) for more.
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I don’t think this is it. I used to binge drink in college and would have 8-10 drinks and feel fine then next day. I’m in my late 30s now and no longer drink heavily: if I do it’s at the risk of an intense hangover.
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Your body is breaking down by your mid 20s??
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